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State hires founder of Wheeler Emergency Management Consulting after governments paid firm more than $2.6 million in less than a year

A Tallahassee consultant whose firm raked in big money in city and county contracts was tapped to replace one of three people fired after the state failed to submit hurricane damage claims before a federal deadline.

In the months after Hurricane Hermine tore through Tallahassee, the local governments paid more than $2.6 million to Wheeler Emergency Management Consulting, founded by Jason E. Wheeler.

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Federal Emergency Management Agency logo

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He was hired by the Florida Division of Emergency Management as its recovery bureau chief in August. He replaced one of three agency veterans, who were terminated for botched appeals made by local governments for federal dollars that missed crucial deadlines.

State business records show Wheeler stepped down as president of his firm on Aug. 21. The company still holds a contract with Leon County to serve as a representative to the Federal Emergency Management Agency during disaster cleanup.

Leon County records show the Wheeler firm received more than $1.79 million in payments since Oct. 27, 2016, to verify the work done by tree removal vendors. The city of Tallahassee paid the firm more than $823,000 to help navigate the FEMA reimbursement process in the wake of the September 2016 storm, records show.

Wheeler's firm also was listed as a state vendor, but it did not have any active contracts, according to records with the Florida Department of Management Services.

The DEM employees were terminated after the agency failed to submit 26 appeals to FEMA on behalf of various local government agencies. A list of those claims provided Thursday by DEM showed only one made by Brevard County stemmed from Hurricane Matthew. The rest were from previous storms going back to 2004.

DEM officials promised to work with local governments to settle the existing appeals. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, also sent a letter to FEMA on Wednesday, asking the agency to not punish those communities for the state agency's mistake.

The state's emergency management agency is overseen by the office of Gov. Rick Scott. The governor will step down in January 2019 due to term limits, and he has not ruled out a campaign to unseat Nelson in the 2018 election.

Wheeler replaced Evan Rosenberg, who served as the DEM recovery bureau chief since February 2013. He said the 26 missed appeals were among the 2,500 the agency had handled since 2004.

Rosenbeg told the Naples Daily News that he was blindsided by the firing and that it had nothing to do with missed deadlines.

“I’ll be truthful in saying yes, mistakes may happen,” Rosenberg said. “And there were some that we didn’t appeal for a variety of programmatic reasons, especially in regard to private property debris removal arising in some of the Matthew counties.”

Federal guidelines hold the state responsible for claims made by counties, municipalities and school districts in disaster areas declared by the governor. Local governments can appeal a rejected claim but it must be submitted to FEMA by the state.

Rosenberg, Deputy Recovery Chief Cathy Day and State Public Assistance Officer Bryan Lowe were handed dismissal slips in April.

"I asked my boss in the presence of HR whether there was a reason for the termination or if this was just part of the plan, and he stated that, ‘It was just part of the plan,' ” Rosenberg said.

Lowe declined to comment and efforts to reach Day were unsuccessful.

Day was replaced by Caroline Edwards, who was promoted from within the agency. Lowe was replaced by Carter Mack, who was previously the agency's deputy director of external affairs.

Rosenberg said the terminations were part of changes brought on by DEM Chief of Staff Wes Maul, who was hired by the agency in May 2016. Maul left his previous role as Scott’s traveling assistant to fill the newly created chief of staff position at DEM.

A DEM spokesman denies Rosenberg's claim.

"We have absolutely zero tolerance for anyone who does not live up to our mission and very high standards every day," the agency said in a statement. "Our agency hires highly qualified professionals in positions that allow the division to continually improve our operation of emergency preparation response and recovery - to say otherwise is false."

A phone call to Wheeler's firm was not returned. State records show Wheeler's company was previously registered to a Tallahassee home in his name. That address was switched in August to a Marianna location.

Records show the Wheeler firm also was hired by Washington County after two storms in 2015.